You came to me from out of nowhere
so why don't you go back where you came from?
--Abe Burrows song title
I managed to shut off the alarm and get up without disturbing Mae. I
was having breakfast when the back door slammed open. We don't lock our
doors in countrified, law-abiding High Tor.
"Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam!" It was six-year-old Harry Tyler, the son of our
neighbors. "There's a spaceship in the woods!"
"What were you doing in the woods at this uncivilized hour?" I said,
the neighborly avuncular instinct grabbing the wrong end of his remark.
Then I said, "What? A spaceship? In the woods?"
"I went out to pick some strawberries for my breakfast," Harry said.
"That's why I was in the woods. It's big and black and nobody saw me, I
don't think."
"How do you know it's a spaceship?"
"Everybody knows what a spaceship looks like. It's big and black, just
the way it's supposed to be. Come on and see it."
"Is your daddy up yet?" I asked Harry. Len Tyler usually gets up a few
minutes after I do. "Did you tell him?"
"He's on vacation," Harry said. I'd forgotten. "He's still asleep. So's
Mommy. Come on and see the spaceship, Uncle Sam."
I always feel very martial when Harry and the other kids in the
neighborhood call me Uncle Sam. I feel that I have to uphold the honor
of the Republic and Set an Example.
"Son," I said, "you're on. Let us go investigate this phenomenon."
A telescope hung in the back hall where it had been gathering dust
since I gave up being a satellite watcher. It was a pretty good
Japanese telescope, not expensive, but not cheap either. I took it
down and wondered whether to look for my old souvenir machete for
protection. But I decided that would be overdoing it.
We have about an acre of clear ground behind our house, then the woods
begin. It's really an abandoned apple orchard, with the apple trees
grown tall and neglected and other trees grown to a respectable height
between them. A lot of sticker-bushes live there, too--tough, nasty
things with needle-sharp spines. I wished I'd brought the machete after
all.
Harry and I had threaded our way a few hundred feet when I stopped. My
left shirt sleeve was torn, my pants were wet up to the knees from the
dew, and I was sweating.
"That's far enough, Harry," I said. "There's no spaceship here."
He was a few yards ahead, ducking under a spiny branch I'd have to lift
out of the way at my peril.
"It's right over there, Uncle Sam," he said. "I think I see it now."
"Yeah? I'll go as far as you are, and if it's not there, young Marco
Polo, we're turning back."
"Shh," he said. "Come on."